Bambi eBook

“I am afraid of our meeting. Suppose I
should fall short of your ideal of me? That you
should think me ugly or old, I could not bear it.
I have come to know all my happiness lies in the balance
of that one night, toward which we walk, you and I,
every minute of every day.

“YOUR
LADY.”

His answer came, special delivery:

“It shall be as you wish, dear heart. But
if anything should happen to delay the opening of
the play, I think I should ask you to remit the sentence
of banishment. I live only to look into your eyes!

“How can you say that you may disappoint me?
If you were old, humpbacked, ugly—­what
difference? You are mine! We must find freedom
for ourselves and a new life. I adore you.

“JARVIS.”

“I wouldn’t have thought it of Jarvis,”
said Bambi as she read it. “He makes a
very creditable lover.”

“My DEAR ONE: I am as impatient as you
are for our meeting. I gladly agree that we shall
bring it about, at once, if anything happens to postpone
the play opening.

“What you say about being indifferent to my
looks makes me happy. I shall not try you too
far, my lover. I’m quite pretty and young.
Did you know I was young?

“You speak so confidently of freedom and a new
life together. Are we to shed our old mates,
like Nautilus shells? My new coming into love
makes me pitiful. Must we be ruthless?

“YOUR
OWN.”

“DEAR, GENTLE HEART: I do not wish to seem
ruthless to you, much less to be so. But has
our suffering not entitled us to some joy? I know
my wife to be absorbed in another man; you say your
husband turns to another woman. We represent
to them stumbling-blocks between them and their happiness.
Surely it is only right that we should all be freed
to find our true mates.

“I find it daily more of a burden to carry this
secret in my heart, when knowledge of it would lighten
my wife’s unhappiness. Shall we not confess
the situation, and discuss plans for separation?
I owe this girl who bears my name more than I can
ever pay. I would not do anything to hurt her
pride. Tell me what you think about it, dear one?

“YOUR
JARVIS.”

“JARVIS DEAR: Again I must seem to oppose
you. Please let us keep our secrets to ourselves
until our meeting. Suppose that something should
happen even yet? Suppose we should not wish to
take this step when the time comes? I do not
want you to hurt your wife. I respect and love
you for your sense of obligation to her. How
can she help loving you, my Jarvis?

“When the day comes for me to prove my devotion,
may you say about me that you owe me more than you
can ever pay.

“I live only for the completion of the play.

“YOUR
LOVE.”

XXV

Bambi felt the renewed vigour with which Jarvis attacked
the final problems of their task. He was working
toward the goal of his affections, a meeting with
his lady. She, too, felt the strain of the situation,
and keyed herself up to a final burst of speed.
The middle of February came, bringing the day which
ended their labours.